Russia invades Ukraine. Volume 2
Discussion
vonuber said:
TheJimi said:
You can really see the stress on Zelensky's face, imo, buy equally, he's handling this absolutely brilliantly.
God knows what he went through in the first couple of days.How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
Welshbeef said:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/18566192/russia-thre...
Sorry for red top media link - but the threat and message is crystal clear.
Stop listening to the Russian government, the Russian government constructs messages in such a way that they will get published by major new agencies in the OECD. They are using the nuclear word to get headline attention. To them media is just an informational environment to be manipulated, their propoganda in no way betrays their intentions. Sorry for red top media link - but the threat and message is crystal clear.
Russia is threatening to nuke most NATO countries on a weekly basis at this point - and many that are not in NATO yet as well for good measure. If we accommodated them based on these threats we may as well give Russia half of Europe.
Edit to add: The game with nukes is such that if any country ever used one it would be the end of that country existing. You lose, immediately. They are strictly a deterrent.
Edited by speedy_thrills on Saturday 14th May 18:35
speedy_thrills said:
Stop listening to the Russian government, the Russian government constructs messages in such a way that they will get published by major new agencies in the OECD. They are using the nuclear word to get headline attention. To them media is just an informational environment to be manipulated, their propoganda in no way betrays their intentions.
Good point. *Anything* Russia say publicly is nothing more than an attempt to get the public to behave/think in a certain way. We can't deduce anything from it at all, the sole purpose is manipulation.speedy_thrills said:
Russia is threatening to nuke most NATO countries on a weekly basis at this point - and many that are not in NATO yet as well for good measure. If we accommodated them based on these threats we may as well give Russia half of Europe.
Sometimes it feels like a few posters on here think that's an acceptable outcome.vonuber said:
TheJimi said:
You can really see the stress on Zelensky's face, imo, buy equally, he's handling this absolutely brilliantly.
God knows what he went through in the first couple of days.How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
This is a repost, but for anyone who hasn't read it, the TIME article is brilliant, and quite eye opening.
- https://time.com/6171277/volodymyr-zelensky-interv...
This will be doing wonders for troop morale and support back in Russia.
Russia 'refusing' to take bodies of dead soldiers as it tries to hide scale of Ukraine losses
Russia 'refusing' to take bodies of dead soldiers as it tries to hide scale of Ukraine losses
article said:
Russia is reportedly refusing to take bodies of its soldiers killed in fighting in Ukraine, with corpses piling up in refrigerated train cars outside the Ukrainian capital.
Col Volodymyr Lyamzin, Ukraine’s chief civil-military liaison officer, said several hundred bodies have been collected from the battlefield in the Kyiv and Chernihiv region and brought to a railyard outside the Ukrainian capital.
They are being kept on a train until the Russian government agrees to take them.
...
There are several trains like that in other Ukrainian regions that are keeping more bodies of Russian soldiers, bringing the overall number to thousands, Col Lyamzin said.
Edited to fix quote numptinessCol Volodymyr Lyamzin, Ukraine’s chief civil-military liaison officer, said several hundred bodies have been collected from the battlefield in the Kyiv and Chernihiv region and brought to a railyard outside the Ukrainian capital.
They are being kept on a train until the Russian government agrees to take them.
...
There are several trains like that in other Ukrainian regions that are keeping more bodies of Russian soldiers, bringing the overall number to thousands, Col Lyamzin said.
Edited by FiF on Saturday 14th May 20:27
vonuber said:
speedy_thrills said:
Russia is threatening to nuke most NATO countries on a weekly basis at this point - and many that are not in NATO yet as well for good measure. If we accommodated them based on these threats we may as well give Russia half of Europe.
Sometimes it feels like a few posters on here think that's an acceptable outcome.Someone posted an excellent article on MAD recently, worth a read (apologies for not naming the poster who did).
Even if we glibly laugh off the threat, it is 100% being taken seriously by govts as despite the low probability (and its low), the loss is total... MAD doctrine might be an excellent example of prisoners dilemma, but more recent thinking says its perceptual.
The Ukranians and Zelensky are absolutely owed a debt of gratitude from EVERY western nation. They are paying in blood to alter a global balance of power against Putin. It's why comments from VW CEO and those wedded to Russian gas are increasingly disgraceful.
stole our pensions.Dog Star said:
vonuber said:
God knows what he went through in the first couple of days.
How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
When this is over he will be feted the (free) world over. He and his fighters are an example to us all - I am in awe. How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
Cometh the hour, cometh the Man.
Byker28i said:
BikeBikeBIke said:
ClaphamGT3 said:
As a former Sapper, this is a well argued and accurate analysis. Even in the largest military operation, there is only so much bridging capability. It uses a lot of specialist, hard to replace people and a lot of specialist, hard to replace kit. If you lose it, odds are you're not getting it back on the life of that operation
Thanks, I read that this morning, good to have a second source confirm the reasoning.Dog Star said:
vonuber said:
God knows what he went through in the first couple of days.
How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
When this is over he will be feted the (free) world over. He and his fighters are an example to us all - I am in awe. How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
- How 'Ukraine-washing' became the new gambit for embattled European politicians: https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/05/how-ukraine-wa...I think my favourite cynical quip was from a Norwegian youtuber - "Politicians are lining up outside Zelensky's office like hookers at the Moulin Rouge."
I do worry that the pedestal the world is putting him on means it's going to hurt if he falls off. It will be near impossible for anyone to live up to Zelensky's reputation in the medium to long term, especially if he remains as a politician in one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe.
rigga said:
J4CKO said:
Funny how they haven’t made a direct threat to the US, well I haven’t seen one.
That's not how bully's operate, easier to pick on the smaller ones, because to pick on one of equal, or bigger stance, would immediately show shortcomings.Turns out, picking on Ukraine has done exactly that too.
Poor to be Putin right now, really screwed up massively.
andy_s said:
Crikey. Kudos to the Ukrainians for staying cool under such pressure.FourWheelDrift said:
J4CKO said:
Well, same as us I guess, but was more thinking about their president and media repeatedly going on about nuking other nuclear powers.
Do they really sit there thinking that's a good idea, that there would be nothing sent by return ?
Putin : "I'm going to nuke them" [presses button] Click.....click......click, click, click "It's not working!"Do they really sit there thinking that's a good idea, that there would be nothing sent by return ?
General : "Sir, we have to wait for the modem to connect, but it appears the line is engaged"
Putin : "LYUDMILA GET OFF THE PHONE I'M TRYING TO NUKE SOMEONE!"
Tartan Pixie said:
Dog Star said:
vonuber said:
God knows what he went through in the first couple of days.
How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
When this is over he will be feted the (free) world over. He and his fighters are an example to us all - I am in awe. How he made the decision to stay and send his wife and kids away, that's a choice I hope I never have to make.
- How 'Ukraine-washing' became the new gambit for embattled European politicians: https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/05/how-ukraine-wa...I think my favourite cynical quip was from a Norwegian youtuber - "Politicians are lining up outside Zelensky's office like hookers at the Moulin Rouge."
I do worry that the pedestal the world is putting him on means it's going to hurt if he falls off. It will be near impossible for anyone to live up to Zelensky's reputation in the medium to long term, especially if he remains as a politician in one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in Europe.
A brief history of corruption in Ukraine: the dawn of the Zelensky era - https://eurasianet.org/a-brief-history-of-corrupti...
One of a six part series about corruption covering each of the presidents Ukraine has had since independence. Plenty of links to follow on the off chance anyone wants a rabbit hole to fall in to but I warn you it's more of a mammoth burrow. The tl;dr about Zelensky is that he's trying to fight corruption and was elected on that ticket but has not been particularly effective, hence his low approval ratings before the war.
This is something I'm actually a bit worried about because if funds given in good faith start to go missing it will erode support, something that's quite possible in a country that was ranked 122nd on the Corruption Perception Index, worse than Sri Lanka or Argentina but not as bad as Russia: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/ukr
Bearing the above in mind I decided to have a look at what kind of oversight aid to Ukraine has got and the basic answer is none. It's unclear to me what levels of oversight European countries have on their aid but America is leading the way by using the same model they presumably had in Afghanistan for financial oversight of the DoD, Pentagon and State departments: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3487430-theres...
I think it's essential Zelensky gets any and all support he needs to fight corruption before the end of the war so that when the time comes for rebuilding Ukraine donors can give in confidence and Ukrainian people will get the benefit of that support. Fortunately there are two organisations and one situation Zelensky can lean on for support.
The IMF - In a surprisingly self aware move the IMF have been strong on anti corruption measures before supplying debt relief to Ukraine. Someone more cynical than me might suggest that this is because national industries have already been sold off so they can no longer recommend privatising everything before the judicial and financial institutions are sufficiently corruption free to do so competently and now need a mechanism for controlling the oligarchs: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2017/12/07/pr...
The EU - Ukraine has been working towards an association agreement with the EU since 2014 ( pdf here) but not really getting very far with it. There has however been talk of accelerating Ukraine to candidate status for which Ukraine will need help. The EU is nothing if not a bureaucratic powerhouse so I'm sure could help with corruption oversight.
The sanctions against Russia - Given Ukraine's historical ties to Russia I imagine that every bank in Ukraine now has a well staffed compliance department who've been very busy of late. I might suggest that Ukraine has some effective home grown tools for fighting corruption if the correct laws were implemented and that if Zelensky needs political cover then the nasty EU or IMF made him do it!
<><><>
Sorry, I did say it was a bit of a mammoth burrow. (And if anyone says mammoths didn't live in burrows then explain to me why their bones are always found underground - Checkmate palaeontologists!
)
One of a six part series about corruption covering each of the presidents Ukraine has had since independence. Plenty of links to follow on the off chance anyone wants a rabbit hole to fall in to but I warn you it's more of a mammoth burrow. The tl;dr about Zelensky is that he's trying to fight corruption and was elected on that ticket but has not been particularly effective, hence his low approval ratings before the war.
This is something I'm actually a bit worried about because if funds given in good faith start to go missing it will erode support, something that's quite possible in a country that was ranked 122nd on the Corruption Perception Index, worse than Sri Lanka or Argentina but not as bad as Russia: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2021/index/ukr
Bearing the above in mind I decided to have a look at what kind of oversight aid to Ukraine has got and the basic answer is none. It's unclear to me what levels of oversight European countries have on their aid but America is leading the way by using the same model they presumably had in Afghanistan for financial oversight of the DoD, Pentagon and State departments: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/3487430-theres...
I think it's essential Zelensky gets any and all support he needs to fight corruption before the end of the war so that when the time comes for rebuilding Ukraine donors can give in confidence and Ukrainian people will get the benefit of that support. Fortunately there are two organisations and one situation Zelensky can lean on for support.
The IMF - In a surprisingly self aware move the IMF have been strong on anti corruption measures before supplying debt relief to Ukraine. Someone more cynical than me might suggest that this is because national industries have already been sold off so they can no longer recommend privatising everything before the judicial and financial institutions are sufficiently corruption free to do so competently and now need a mechanism for controlling the oligarchs: https://www.imf.org/en/News/Articles/2017/12/07/pr...
The EU - Ukraine has been working towards an association agreement with the EU since 2014 ( pdf here) but not really getting very far with it. There has however been talk of accelerating Ukraine to candidate status for which Ukraine will need help. The EU is nothing if not a bureaucratic powerhouse so I'm sure could help with corruption oversight.
The sanctions against Russia - Given Ukraine's historical ties to Russia I imagine that every bank in Ukraine now has a well staffed compliance department who've been very busy of late. I might suggest that Ukraine has some effective home grown tools for fighting corruption if the correct laws were implemented and that if Zelensky needs political cover then the nasty EU or IMF made him do it!
<><><>
Sorry, I did say it was a bit of a mammoth burrow. (And if anyone says mammoths didn't live in burrows then explain to me why their bones are always found underground - Checkmate palaeontologists!
)Edited by Tartan Pixie on Sunday 15th May 00:31
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